Changing to the End
by madparty99
Summary: Liz retelling her life.


To be quite honest this came from two of my biggest fears. And it has a bigger section of Tom than I first expected it to, but I like it and its kinda different

Let me know what you think. :)

I don't own anything.

* * *

I am afraid of things changing and ending.

I like things staying stuck in the same in the same old every day rut. I used to enjoy waking up every morning in New York in bed with Tom and then I would shower and he would make pancakes. He would walk me to the door and kiss me tenderly before he would prepare himself for school and I made my way to my FBI desk job. I would fill in paperwork and profile very low level criminals. I would eat the same salad from the same café every day for lunch. After work at 5o'clock, I return home to my husband and we would sit on our lumpy sofa, with our dog, and discuss our day. We make dinner together, have a glass of wine and then go to bed. The same thing every day.

I don't like closure. I am content with no knowing how things end, or whether the outcome was good or bad. I liked living with in my bubbled life where everything is perfect. I don't watch the season finale's of shows until the day of the next season premiere; I don't like the thought of it ending for a while only to be continued. It scares me. It makes me think that one day I am just going to end. One day I am going to seize to exist never touching or changing a life (partly because I'm afraid of change).

I am nothing but ordinary, and it worked to satisfy me until we moved to DC.

The day after we moved I started my new job, a freaking field agent. I am not the type of person that should be a field agent. I am bad at acting, I am not a great shot, and change scares me.

Being a field agent, if you didn't know, is all about adapting and reacting to change. All way following but the strict rules and procedures set by people in suits at desks. I

I was brought into the FBI headquarters to discuss my relationship to the number 4 most wanted criminal. I can assure you, I did not know I knew him. Most of my life I spent running through the motions, not actually living life to the fullest. Messing around with criminals in my free time was most definitely not in my set schedule.

I defined myself as a bitch, which I am. Do not screw with me or my schedule or I will have you head on a stick and your ass above my fireplace.

They wanted me to talk to him, the criminal. Now in the FBI there is no space for a coward, so I pulled my big girl panties on and I saw him.

The moment my eyes laid on him I was reminded of the very reason I don't like thing changing and the reason why I don't like knowing the ending of the story. The Fire.

I was trapped. Fire surrounded me on all four sides, my precious stuffed bunny in my hand, and the toxic smoke filling my lungs. I, at the young age of 9, believed I was going to die. In that very moment of thinking I was going to die is when I became afraid of change. My life when from happy and normal to being caught in a fire, leaving your parents, never knowing if they survived or not, and then moving into a strangers house.

I knew this man. How I don't know. Yet I do. Not anymore, however, whether I like it or not people change and morph into things you can't identify. Like this man that was placed before me, in a cage, like he was a wild animal.

I saved a little girl that day. Something deep within me changed, like a switch was flipped. It was exhilarating, suddenly the life I was afraid to live was on I wanted, needed. A fast paced changing lifestyle, and I wanted, desperately needed answers.

Then everything changed, my happy little marriage was in shambles, I decided I hated pancakes, I was at work more than I was at home. I lived off wine, coffee and takeout. I looked in a mirror and I didn't know who was staring back at me. It most certainly was not the Elizabeth Keen I thought I knew. I turned into a monster, or maybe the monster was inside of me the entire time, but it was awaken by the other monster. The one so terrible, so horrible that he must be caged and cuffed.

The thing I had wanted so badly, the one piece of change at one point in time I wasn't afraid of, I denied myself and my husband from having. I spend hours crying over a baby I never actually had, because I was changed and confused about everything I used to love so much.

Then I found out my husband married me as a job, he was paid to get to me, to marry me, and make me fall in love with him. And I did, I did all of these things. It's amazing how love can blind you from everything.

Love blinds, but so does anger.

I hovered over my husbands' body. Blood smeared up my arms, a hole in his heart where I shot him. The gun discarded to my right.

He tried to kill me. I used my gun as self-defense.

But I couldn't allow him to lay there as the blood seeped out of his chest leaving him lifeless and gone. Dead. I couldn't bring myself to do that.

I love him. Love-d him, before I found out he was nothing but a man paid to kill me. The heart makes you do strange things for people you truly loved.

I applied pressure to the bullet wound. But I shot his heart, my goal being to kill the bastard, but the moment after I saw his figure drop to the ground I could help but want my old life, with the pancakes, and the good bye kiss, the daily salad, and the curling into each other's bodies before drifting off to sleep.

I wanted things to revert back to normal, before the changed, before I saw the end of Tom Keen's life.

The man that changed my life, made me a monster, or rather awakened the monster inside me. Came to my rescue; he whisked me away from the life I ended, and created a new one.

He was great to me. Gave me space, time to grieve the Tom I loved and married. Without me knowing at the time he gave me love, I was just too blindsided to realize what he was doing for me.

The quick fleeting touches changed into hand holding and soothing. The silent gestures turned into little comments to try to create a smile.

I found myself liking this, I was quickly adapting to the change in relationship between me and this criminal.

The closer I got to the man, the more and more I knew I was digging my own grave. He was dangerous, bad, and no good.

I guess, I kind of had a thing for bad boys. I fell in love with Raymond Reddington.

He was just as surprised as I was when I told him. He yelled at me, a lot. Told me I was being senseless, and absolutely crazy. Which I was, and I fully knew this fact.

I pressed my lips against his, and that was it. We both couldn't get enough of each other. I found out for the first time what it actually felt liked to be loved. And it wasn't living in a rut; it was light and crazy and spontaneous. Raymond made me insanely happy.

Life, of course, changes whether you want it to or not. I got pregnant. It wasn't planned. And it wasn't mutually accepted. I was left on my own for a while, carrying a child with a criminal father that didn't want him or me.

It wasn't until I gave birth to the baby boy that I saw the man again.

For once I saw the man disheveled. His tie loosened, missing a button from the middle of the shirt, absent of a suit jacket, and a vest was stained. His face told of lack of sleep, bags under his eyes, along with bloodshot and glossed over eyes.

It's funny how love blinds.

I accepted his minimal explanation. I didn't care where he had been or who he had been with or what they had done. I just wanted to feel the love he gave me again. Which he gave, extra willingly, it had become apparent that the guilt of abandoning his pregnant lover had been eating at him for a while.

He eventually asked me to marry him. I said yes.

I was newly appointed to assistant director of the FBI and the head of my task force. So, we could be actually married, no matter how badly either of us wanted to. The baby also had to be Tom's baby, at least in the eyes of the FBI, and he helped I went into labor three months too early.

Life was a mess. A crazy, beautiful, wonderful mess.

My baby grew up and went into the Navy like his father. He would take over the good operation of the Reddington business, the non-criminal activities.

Then I was placed as the head of the FBI, how my relationship with a most wanted criminal went unnoticed was beyond me.

We still went married by the time I time I turned 55, but he was already 79 and we wanted to be married. I got resigned from my duties as head of the FBI and we walked into city hall and got married.

After all the change I went through I was insanely happy. I had a wonderful son, the job I always wanted, the world's best husband, and the love of my life.

Life was going too perfect for me after I shot my first husband.

Karma is a bitch.

I found out I have stage IV Lymphoma. I think Raymond cried more than I did. I knew I had a good life, an imperfect one but a good one at least. He just wanted me to be safe; he wanted to be able to protect me from everything. I found the one thing he couldn't safe me from, myself.

We said our good byes before I went into the operating room to remove a rapidly growing tumor. He started crying and I couldn't stop myself from crying too. I loved him so much, that it physically hurt to know I was going to die either on the operating table of soon after. He is my best friend. I am just glad I will never have to know what life is without him by my side every day. It's like having wine or alcohol in general, once you get a taste you don't want to remember life before you could have it.

If I die on the operating table, I hope that writing everything down was a good thing and will help my family.

Love you my little Sam, please follow in my footsteps be a good guy! Not a bad guy like your daddy. Oh and please find a wife soon. Please for me? Just make sure she isn't stupid. I will roll over in my grave if she is stupid. I am so proud of you.

I love you Raymond Reddington. You changed me for the better, and I used to fear change. I will never know your ending and I think that is what scares me most about dying, not knowing if you will be okay. Oh, and I always knew you would out live me you bastard! I love you so much, please never forget that or doubt it for a minute, you are my best friend, and a wonderful husband and father, and other things I shouldn't say in case Sam reads this. Love you.

With lots of hugs and kisses,

Mom or Lizzie.


End file.
